Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 28. June 27, 2025
- Parent agency, FAA often at odds as politics outweighs safety June 26, 2025
- Electric Flight and the Ugly Duckling June 25, 2025
- Engine makers tout “Plan A” but have “Plan B” backups in R&D June 23, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 27. June 20, 2025
Boeing and SPEEA: the debate heats up
Boeing’s engineers’ union, SPEEA, has been pretty vocal in its campaign to members with internal statements, its website and on Twitter–the latter certainly read by media.
Boeing now has launched a public website of its own.
Odds and Ends: Seeking an injunction against A320 sharklet sales; more
A320 Sharklets: Remember the lawsuits between Aviation Partners and Airbus over winglets and sharklets? AP wants an injunction against A320 sharklet sales. That sure got Airbus’ attention.
American and US Airways: Bloomberg has a long piece on US Airways’ effort to acquire American Airlines.
Emirates Airlines: The fast-growing carrier is about to become the world’s third largest.
Airbus and US Spending: Airbus wants to double its US supply-chain sourcing to $24bn.
Boeing BWB: This article has some pictures of Boeing’s latest version of the Blended Wing Body research model.
Boeing appears to finally drop 737-600
Boeing has updated its price list and for the first time, the price for the 737-600 is missing. Boeing hasn’t sold a 737-600 since 2005. In June, Boeing told us the model was still being offered. Not any more, apparently. We’ve sent an inquiry to Boeing for an official statement.
Update, 12:30pm: Boeing gave us this statement at 0900 but we’ve been away from the computer until now:
- Should customers request to order a Next-Generation 737-600, BCA Sales will work with the customer to meet their requirements.
- The Next-Generation 737-600 model will continue to be supported by the 737 Program.
We note that this statement doesn’t really confirm or deny the discontinuation of the 737-600 offering.
Update, 3:45pm: Linda Lee, the 737 program spokesperson, got back to us with this slightly expanded response from that offered by a non-program spokesman earlier today. Lee said:
| Old $mm | New $mm | Diff$mm | % Diff | |
| B737-600 | 59.4 | 0 | -59.4 | -100% |
| B737-7 MAX | 77.7 | 82 | 4.3 | 6% |
| B737-700 | 70.9 | 74.8 | 3.9 | 6% |
| B737-8 MAX | 95.2 | 100.5 | 5.3 | 6% |
| B737-800 | 84.4 | 89.1 | 4.7 | 6% |
| B737-9 MAX | 101.7 | 107.3 | 5.6 | 6% |
| B737-900ER | 89.6 | 94.6 | 5.0 | 6% |
| B747-8 | 332.9 | 351.4 | 18.5 | 6% |
| B747-8F | 333.5 | 352 | 18.5 | 6% |
| B767-200ER | 151.5 | 160.2 | 8.7 | 6% |
| B767-300ER | 173.1 | 182.8 | 9.7 | 6% |
| B767-300ERF | 175.4 | 185.4 | 10.0 | 6% |
| B767-400ER | 190.2 | 200.8 | 10.6 | 6% |
| B777-200ER | 244.7 | 258.8 | 14.1 | 6% |
| B777-200F | 280.1 | 295.7 | 15.6 | 6% |
| B777-200LR | 275.8 | 291.2 | 15.4 | 6% |
| B777-300ER | 298.3 | 315 | 16.7 | 6% |
| B787-8 | 193.5 | 206.8 | 13.3 | 7% |
| B787-9 | 227.8 | 243.6 | 15.8 | 7% |
Odds and Ends: RR vs Air France; Kingfisher Airlines; Phuket
RR vs Air France: We’ve written about this before–Air France wants to maintain the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines on the Airbus A350s it wants to buy, but RR wants to maintain the engines. The dispute has been holding up confirming the order for a year. The Wall Street Journal has this update.
Kingfisher Airlines: The carrier continues its long spiral down. Lessors want airplanes back. The government is holding onto the airplanes in lieu of the airlines’ airport payments which are in default. ATR long ago canceled the orders it had with Kingfisher. Airbus is the other big loser.
Phuket: Emirates Airlines adds Phuket, Thailand, to its route network. We’ve always loved this name. But we’ve always wondered: is it pronounced with a soft U or a hard U? Fokker is a close runner-up.
Update, 1:30 PM PDT: One of the first images from Mars, courtesy of Mr. Sulu (George Takei on Facebook):
Boeing nabs Airbus customer SilkAir
Boeing won an important, symbolic victory over Airbus in the neo v MAX competition by nabbing SilkAir, heretofore an exclusive Airbus A320 family customer.
SilkAir will order up to 68 Boeing 737-800s and -8 MAXes.
After Airbus grabbed three 737 customers for its neo family, Boeing vowed to aggressively go after Airbus operators. SilkAir is the first win in this effort.
LCC airline news: AirAsia bid draws scrutiny; WestJet goes upscale; M&A potential
There are two items of note for low-cost carriers that we find interesting:
- AirAsia’s bid to buy Batavia Air looks like it is to become a political football, according to this article in the Wall Street Journal.
- Canada’s WestJet is adding premium coach class to its long-standing single-class service. We find this one particularly interesting.
Then there is this analytical piece from Seeking Alpha about a variety of potential mergers.
Ft Worth columnist blasts American’s Horton
This is one of the most blistering critiques we’ve seen of a company CEO where no improprieties were involved.
Mitchell Schnurman of American’s hometown paper, The Ft. Worth Star Telegram, just pummels AMR/American CEO Tom Horton.
Odds and Ends: the cost of a 737-800; Planes take off despite ground mishap; ‘We know about this’
Boeing 737-800: Wells Fargo’s aerospace analyst team issued a note today that confirms its previous calculations that American Airlines is paying $40m-$41m for its 737-800s.
Update, August 1: We received this note from Wells Fargo: What was confirmed was AA’s SELLING price to AerCap and ILFC, NOT what AA is paying.
American Airlines: AirInsight has this analysis of the current American Airlines situation.
Speaking of American: Flight Global has this story about how an American 767-300ER and a Ryanair 737-800 brushed each other on the ground all pilots were unaware and both airplanes took off.
One more American: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has this series of 49 photos and airline liveries, past and present, starting with American.
And then there is Alaska Airlines: A passenger snapped this photo on an Alaska Airlines flight. Via NYCAviation’s Tweet.
SPEEA, Boeing contract: Don’t expect an “IAM breakthrough”
SPEEA, the engineers union at Boeing, and the company appear to be at odds in the early stages of contract negotiations and there appears virtually no chance of a surprise breakthrough similar to the IAM 751-Boeing contract last December.
People familiar with the situation on both sides say they are hunkered down for traditional contract negotiations in advance of the October 4 amendable date.
SPEEA suggested in June 2011 that both sides go to binding arbitration as a first, not last step as a way to speed up a contract and avoid protracted, potentially contentious negotiations. Boeing declined, according to SPEEA and confirmed by a person familiar with the Boeing position. According to two sources, Boeing didn’t want to give up decision-making to a third party. Boeing also didn’t see the urgency or need to avoid normal contract negotiations, according to the person familiar with the Boeing thinking.